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Success Plans: Is it possible to link a custom SFDC object to add editable fields in the 'Plan Info' section?

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pele
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Use Case: Our CS Ops team is working on bringing in a new team into GS. The team is a services team responsible for implementation projects. In their current workflow, they create a new record on a custom SFDC object for every new project. They use the object's fields to add details about projects and update project statuse, and this process won't be going away when we bring them into GS.

Ideally, what I'd like to do is create a success plan template where I could link a SP to a record of the existing custom object and give our implementation team the ability to edit fields directly from the Plan Info section of the success plan.

e.g.



I think I can kind of get this by linking the object to CTAs and adding a section to the objectives where I could make fields editable (although, I haven't actually done this yet), but I would like the fields to also be visable from the Plan Info section for quick reference in GS w/o needing team members to go into SFDC to view project records.

Also, for context, we use Relationships to track usage and infomation about this particular product's subscriptions. And it's likely that one relationship will have more than one project (and hopefully SP) added to it over time.

Hoping some SP pros that have implemented workflows involving some kind of services activities can help w/ some best practices, tips, guidance, etc.

cc: @emily_zurow

15 replies

aditya_marla
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Hi Pele,

Quick question....in the process is a record created in SFDC & basis that a Success Plan is created? Then, would the main use case be about surfacing the information on the custom object on the plan info tab

Or is it more about being able to creare & update fields directly in the custom SFDC object from the plan info tab?

pele
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Hi Aditya– thanks for the response! For us, it's more about surfacing information from the custom object (although, I think being able to reference any object in SFDC or MDA would be great).

In this case, I'm trying to figure out if I can use Success Plans in sort of a many:1 fashion. It's pretty typical that we have multiple projects concurrently open for the same account/relationship. And since these each have seperate workflows, tasks, timelines etc. I would want a seperate Success Plan created that corresponds to each project record in our sfdc instance. And If I can surface some key fields from the project records in the Plan Info section, I could encourage our implementation team members to stay in GS and update fields from the Success Plan itself, instead of jumping back to sfdc to update project records.

aditya_marla
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Got it. Thanks a lot for sharing the information.

Woud this work in your case: For each project you can create 1 success plan. You can create a look-up on the Success Plan object. So for each SP this will contain details about the corresponding project in SFDC. Using this you can surface details on the Plan Info tab.

pele
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That's exactly what I had in mind! I can see it being useful in other cases as well. e.g. CSM foresees a tough renewal coming up down the line, creates a 'Red Account' SP for the customer, adds a lookup to the renewal opp, and GS admins configure the SP type to surface opp details in the Plan Info Section.

carolyn_dibuono
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Can this be converted into an idea? I have many customers that ask for this functionality and would love to share this post!

lila_meyer
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Converting to an Idea (feature request). 

We have a workaround for this to some extent. The customer has a custom SFDC object called “Projects” & from the Success Plan they want to be able to view/update records in this object (similar to how linked objects work in Cockpit). We don’t have that capability, but one workaround is to create a lookup to the project object on the Success Plan object (which works for this customer because they have a 1:1 relationship), and via this they can display the details from the project object onto the Success Plan (but cannot edit them). -- notes from the PM

Lila Meyer, Dir. Global Education Services
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I will try the workaround mentioned above, but just wanted to add my +1 here. We send customers a welcome survey when they join and store those responses in an SF object. We would want to be able to surface said responses on the success plan layout so that our CSMs can refer to the information quickly without having to click into different sections.

whitney
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I currently use this workaround but would LOVE a bi-directional relationship between SFDC Customer Object/Gainsight Success Plan - Plan Info page!

 

This would allow us to get a few of our services teams fully working out of Gainsight. 

 

@linus_araque  :) 

 

 

andreammelde
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disregard. having to create a custom object workaround is a lot of additional admin that is not great.

 

we want to keep our team in GS fully

Andrea Carroll
andreammelde
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I attempted this workaround in NXT. I created a custom object to have a rule populate fields the CAE inputs in SFDC, but when I try to use the lookup it will only allow me to have standard objects not custom objects

Andrea Carroll
andreammelde
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I am attempting the workaround, but am not able to work with the lookup. When I try to create a plan and map to the record ID using a custom field on success plans, it makes me default a value which doesnt work. 

 

Am I missing something @lila_meyer 

 

Andrea Carroll
lila_meyer
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I have to defer to @Anil Raj Pujari on this question.

Lila Meyer, Dir. Global Education Services
andreammelde
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@lila_meyer

I tried another way, but am still not getting the option to load the plan.

 

  1. Created a custom field on the Success Plan to populate the SFDC Project Record ID
  2. Created a custom object that send the Success Plan GSID and the SFDC Project Record ID to a Low Volume Custom Object. The custom object has a lookup to the SFDC Project Record ID
  3. Use a rule to populate the custom object with the additional information I want to display on the account plan
  4. The lookup does not show on the Success Plan object, but show on my low volume object. I am not able to pull the information into the Success Plan

Other issue:

  • Once you create a field, you cannot add a lookup
  • In Success Plans, if you create a custom field with a lookup and try to create a plan using the rules engine it will not allow you to map a value. It attempts to do the lookup and map to a custom value

     

Andrea Carroll
andreammelde
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This does not work for NXT, and will only work for SFDC

Andrea Carroll
Anil Raj Pujari
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Linked object on success plan is in our medium term roadmap. Will update here once we make enough progress

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